STRFKR blurs the divide between dance and pop rock

Conceding to song licensing and playing the name game is all part of the trajectory of success for zany popsters STRFKR (clockwise from top: Josh Hodges, Patrick Morris, Shawn Glassford, Keil Corcoran).

Josh Hodges was a deejay who didn’t like phonies. So when an obnoxious musician started bragging about his sexual conquests out on tour in 2007, Hodges thought of a way to put him in his place.

“I wasn’t even trying to start a band,” he said. “The name Starfucker was intended to make fun of that whole value system.”

Hodges, who had been spinning records under the name Sexton Blake and had two marginally successful mixtapes to his credit, said the “band” was mainly assembled to give him an opportunity to mess around with his drumming. But along with Shawn Glassford and Ryan Bjornstad, Hodges and Starfucker went on tour in 2008 and established themselves as a solid group of multi-
instrumentalists doing electro-pop over the backdrop of an outlandish stage act.

Hodges writes the majority of the band’s songs and plays guitar and keyboard in addition to doing his share of the drumming, but early on he knew the act had a glaring problem—its drummers just weren’t good enough. The band picked up a “real drummer” in the form of Keil Corcoran in 2009 and went on a second tour with a part time fill-in, Ian Luxton. Still, Hodges said the mix wasn’t right.

“Things were not working out with Ryan,” Hodges said. “Since then we’ve added Patrick Morris, and it’s all going well. It’s like you’re dating four people, and you have to break up with people sometimes. It’s definitely the best it’s ever been.”

Increasingly popular success has followed for Hodges, Glassford, Corcoran, and Morris. Starfucker released its first major record label LP in 2011 after signing with Polyvinyl Records, and the band has licensed a number of songs for use in commercials and television shows.

“When I was a kid, [licensing songs] was really uncool,” Hodges said. “Now it’s just the nature of the business. Bands don’t make as much money on a record as they used to. There are definitely things I wouldn’t do, like an ad for the military.”

Hodges said Starfucker has grown largely by word of mouth, as opposed to the viral Internet success of some of its contemporaries. He thinks the band appeals to wide audiences—the edgy electronica stuff brings out the club kids, and the catchy pop sound appeals to all sorts of indie music lovers, even the easy listening set.

Hodges said that while the band was playing at parties just five years ago, the four-piece now finds itself in larger venues every time it makes a repeat visit.

“Going through cities like D.C., there are all these venues that we have heard about, and now we’re playing them,” Hodges said. “The shows kind of go with the audience. We started playing these packed rooms, and in that environment it’s easy to have a shared energy. We try to keep that playing the new venues.”

Starfucker draws on the influence of theatrical acts like the Flaming Lips and Of Montreal to help keep the energy up. The band’s stage manager has been known to stage dive in an astronaut costume, and the guys sometimes dress in drag. They travel with a flashy LED wall to keep it trippy, and they work the room after shows like they’re still at a hipster house party.

“We always hang out and talk to people at the merch table,” Hodges said. “We see people that haven’t seen us for years that are like friends now.”

Starfucker’s latest album, Miracle Mile, is an extension of its early success. Half “drunk guitars” and half dance tunes, the record has been criticized for not moving forward, but it’s as catchy as anything the band’s ever produced.

“At first I wanted to make a happy sounding album,” Hodges said. “That’s the drunk stuff. But then there is also the dancey stuff. The whole process was more collaborative than ever before. It used to just be me writing and recording. Now we are writing together and getting everyone in the same room.”

With more live bookings and growing record sales, one problem has continued to come up for Starfucker—the name. Hodges said some people won’t even listen to the band because of the expletive, and they’ve had a lot of posters destroyed over the years. To make the whole thing go down easier and make sure they get on marquees, Hodges decided to switch to STRFKR in 2012.

“People still know,” he said. “That was a way we found to keep the name and still get to be on the radio.”

STRFKR has come a long way from being a send-up of rock stars, and Hodges clearly wrestles with that fact. But in the end, he says it’s a lot more fun whoring himself out by doing something creative than by working behind a counter somewhere.

“Now the fun thing for me is seeing how far we can go with this name,” Hodges said. “Every time we play festivals and headline a stage, it’s like, this is so fucking crazy that we can do this.”

Derisive punk pranksters ONWE make their second local appearance this month at the end of a tour that has booked up and down the East Coast as well as four shows at Austin, Texas’ South by Southwest Festival. Since the 2014 release of the single “Unpaid Internship,” the trio has risen to the

Emily Hearn Hourglass/Old Prince Records Be warned: Emily Hearn will be your new favorite singer-songwriter. On her sophomore effort Hearn grows artistically by leaps and bounds with a rich, understated vocal prowess, a sonic palette beyond the country and folk stylings of earlier albums, and

Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo’s nonfiction masterpiece, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, hits the big screen in a live streamed National Theatre production directed by Rufus Norris. Peek behind the curtain of Mumbai’s luxury travel industry to discover the ambitions of a bevy of slum

There are bad movies, there are really bad movies, there are atrocities committed against the intelligence of paying crowds that call themselves movies, and then there’s The Gunman. Watching it will make you forget that movies that aren’t this bad exist at all. It’s so godawful that even

Actor, director and UVA Drama professor Kate Burke is on a mission to change American theater. “I’m very aware of how the American tradition has been influenced by Method acting,” Burke said in a recent interview. “There are some good things about it, but in distorted form it focuses on

Virginia-born and Nashville-based, Nora Jane Struthers makes her country roots come alive on the energetic new album, Wake. The former high school teacher’s first self-produced record crosses Emmylou Harris with Pearl Jam in a collection of percussive panoramas and Southern-fried slide guitar.

John McCutcheon is equal parts musician and storyteller, skilled with a variety of instruments but also engaging when telling tales between tunes. He is a Wisconsin native who called Charlottesville home for years before moving to Smoke Rise, Georgia. He is also an avid community organizer and

Blue Note recording artist and composer Wayne Shorter has been a preeminent jazz saxophonist since the 1960s when he performed with Miles Davis and his Second Great Quintet. The 10-time Grammy-winner is joined onstage by Esperanza Spalding, the young double bass phenom who’s garnered four

“I feel like an old soul in general. If I’m shopping, I’d rather buy something old and upcycle it or do something that appreciates the value of what it used to be,” said Charlottesville- based alternative photographer Cary Oliva. “Things were just more beautiful back in the day.” The intrigue

If you ever come across a herd of nerds walking around Charlottesville with expensive-looking cameras, do not fear. They’re just photo walkers. And while their numbers are growing, they’re mostly harmless. Charlottesville has at least two groups that regularly hold photo walks, and the

There is a sneaky sort of rebelliousness in Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella—in the way it pushes back against the tide of revisionism and misdirected irony that has overtaken family entertainment in recent years. Sincere instead of sarcastic, elegant instead of flashy, and wishing to enchant

Up-and-coming Southern rockers J. Roddy Walston & The Business are on tour in support of Essential Tremors, an album that borrows its name from a nervous system disorder that’s plagued the band’s frontman throughout his career. Walston said that it makes sense to be more open about his

With a career spanning more than four decades, Lily Tomlin has earned her legendary status in American comedy. After becoming a household name on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” in the early ’70s, Tomlin went on to starring roles in TV, film and theater. In 2003, the comedienne extraordinaire

Probably all of us have felt it at one point or another. For some, it comes in the form of an obsession with story—the drive to know what happens next, to revel in character and incident and situation, to follow a plot as it arcs and swoops and blossoms (or crashes and implodes). For some […]

“I knew I was way over my head,” said Beth Macy. As a feature writer for a regional newspaper attempting to write a nonfiction book about the global economy, she had her work cut out for her. Macy did it though, and her first book, Factory Man, was published in July 2014, making The New York

With songs that are busy, crowded and accessible, a rock ‘n’ roll diner is the perfect venue for Brooklyn-based indie folk artist Bay Uno’s Charlottesville debut. And while Uno is on the later side of middle age, he’s hip, like a grass-fed burger topped with cheddar and artisan

Kentucky native Ben Sollee is quickly becoming a household name thanks to his innovative songwriting and inventive approach to the cello. Using his bow and his right hand, he slaps and plucks chords creating a full groove that sounds more like a trio than a soloist. His recent credits include

From start to finish, everything about the Chappie experience is a pleasant surprise. Yes, Neill Blomkamp’s story of a police robot in the near future who becomes sentient can be viewed as a synthesis of Short Circuit and RoboCop, but the film gets the more familiar plot elements out of the way

In the sunroom of a manor home in Bucks County Pennsylvania, brother Vanya and adopted sister Sonia are sighing back and forth. The interior of the home is lovely and laden with books, the house is flanked by trees on either side, and the idyllic indoor porch offers two wicker chairs and a